In the electrophotography art, there is a need for charge control agents that do not increase the temperature required to adequately fuse the toner powders containing the same. Lower fusing temperatures are desirable because they permit copiers to operate at lower temperatures which increases the useful life of machine components in the copier such as the photoconductor films, electronic components, fuser roll and the like. A reduction in fusing temperature also reduces power consumption, copier warmup time, and problems with paper receivers and permits higher speed fusing.
One approach that has been tried to achieve these results is to utilize conventional charge control agents such as quaternary ammonium compounds, amines, phosphoniums and the like. However, these charge control agents undesirably increase the temperature required to adequately fuse the toner powder and/or can result in the equivalent fusing quality not being attained at any temperature. Furthermore, many of these charge control agents are very expensive.
For example, the conventional charge control agent N-octadecyl-N,N-dimethylbenzylammonium m-nitrobenzenesulfonate can increase the fusing temperature of a toner powder by 25.degree. to 50.degree. F.
So far as is now known, the problem of controlling the charge in toner powders while maintaining a low fusing temperature and good fusing quality has not been solved.